


Jane: The Real Story

by aparticularbandit



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, F/F, F/M, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-12-26 09:40:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18280565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit
Summary: In which JTV is based on one woman's attempts to fictionalize real events happening in her life as a coping mechanism.In which this tells the events how they really happened.  Not a telenovela.  The REAL story.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up that I'm mostly writing this because my little joke tumblr posts about it seem to be doing really well so I thought, hey, why not make this a legitimate thing.
> 
> Updates will probably be irregular. Character interpretations are likely not going to be what they are in canon because looking at the events from a different angle and with different interpretations of them and how they might happen so that they can be turned into how Jane tells them (for various reasons, and I've got more than one potentially in mind for this).
> 
> For me, this is meant to be cathartic. I know it might come across as weird or ooc for the characters to act this way, but like, hang with me during this, if you want?
> 
> Also, I've mainly been writing Roisa stuf with regards to the fandom, so it might take me a bit to get the character interpretations and writing them down better.

“She’s writing again.”

Xiomara nodded toward where her daughter sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop in front of her, earbuds in her ears.  She was so focused on the screen, or perhaps on what she was imagining, that everything else around her must have faded away.  She didn’t even notice her mother watching her.

“Do you think she’s writing about _him_ again?”

Xo shrugged.  “I don’t know.”

Jane had been writing the same story over and over again for years, always starting with the same point, the same conversation, always about her and the guy she’d met, the guy she’d nearly dated, so many years earlier.  Xo thought he was just a player – he had that kind of vibe – but Jane didn’t listen, had instead used the meeting to bolster her fantasies and her writing.  But, then, she’d always been like that, using her personal life as fuel for her writing.

To be quite honest, Xo was just glad that _she_ wasn’t one of the main characters anymore, that _her_ mother wasn’t.  There was something unsettling about the stories her daughter wrote, as though she took all of their best traits and made them disappear when she needed them to do so, took all of their _worst_ traits and exaggerated them.  Almost as though they weren’t themselves anymore but just caricatures, shells.

Well-written and entertaining shells, but shells nevertheless.

Regardless, Xo knew better than to interrupt.  Instead, she just shut the door as much as she could, leaving it open the littlest crack so that sound wasn’t startling, and went back to the living room to catch up on her latest telenovela.

* * *

 

_Earlier that day…._

“Hi.  I’m Luisa Alver.  Rafael sent me to make a home call.”

“Don’t you mean _house_ call?” Xo asked.  She didn’t open the door further or invite the woman inside.  Something about her seemed familiar, although she couldn’t quite place it.

The woman grinned in a manner so bright it was startling.  “Yes.  _House call._   That’s what I meant.  Not _home call_.  That sounds like _phone call_ , and this is definitely not a phone call.  Just a house call.  A normal. every day. house call.”  Her wide eyes shifted from Xo to the door and back again.  “Can I come inside?”

Xo’s eyes narrowed.  “ _Rafael_ sent you?”

Luisa’s eyes shifted again.  “Yes?”

“Why would he do that?”

And _that_ was when the panic set in.  Xo could see it, the flash in the other woman’s eyes, how they grew so big the whites were as big as the pupils, and that deep breath as though to steady herself.  “You don’t know,” Luisa said with a nod, lips pressing together.  “Of course you don’t know, right, why would I think you would know, no one _ever_ says _anything_ to—”

“What don’t I know?”

“Is Jane there?”  It was another tactic.  The woman peered around Xo, trying to glance through the windows into their little house.  “I’m here to see her.”

“You’re not her normal doctor.”

“No, I’m not.  I’m a specialist.  Rafael sent me.”

“Rafael hasn’t seen my daughter in five years.  Why would he be sending _anyone_ here _now_?”  Xo took in the woman’s appearance, and her eyes narrowed.  “Especially a doctor.  Why would he be sending a _doctor_ to see—”

 _Then_ she got it.  Kind of.  She knew.  _She knew._   But it had still been years since they’d seen each other, and while Jane wasn’t always the most open person, she would’ve said something about this.  She would have.  She’d spent those years making him the main love interest in every story she’d written since and, to be honest, Xo had gotten more than a little tired of hearing about him.  Even through other relationships (and Jane was in a fairly good one now), she hadn’t dropped him as a character.  But then, writers were like that, right?  They had characters who were important to them who they used until they figured out their best use?  
  
She didn’t know.  She wasn’t a writer.  But it was like _The Passions of Santos_ , right?  Same character, a lot of interconnected adventures.  Who was she to judge?  (Her mom.  She was Jane’s mom.  That gave her plenty of right to judge.  _Not that she did_ , but that _she could_.)

“Jane!” Xo yelled, leaning back into the house.  “There’s a Dr. Alver here to see you!”

“I didn’t—”

“She says Rafael sent her!”

There was a pounding in the background – the sound of Jane speeding out of her bed and her feet landing on the ground – and Xo turned back to the doctor with a smile that looked more like a wince.  That alone was enough of a confirmation.  She pulled the door open and stepped back so that Dr. Alver could come inside.

Jane arrived just as she was shutting the door.  “Dr. Alver.”  Her voice took on that uncertain and uncomfortable tone it had whenever she had to address something that she really didn’t want to deal with.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Luisa, please.”  The doctor held out her hand.  “Considering the situation, first name basis might be better.”

“What situation?” Xo asked, voice taut, and she watched as the doctor gave the uncomfortable grin that she decided must be the same as Jane’s current tone.  Her eyes focused on Jane.  “What’s happening, Jane?”

Jane wrang her hands together.  Her eyes flicked to the doctor then back to her mom.  She tried to grin.  “I’m pregnant.”

* * *

 

_Even earlier that day…._

“ _Again?_ ”  Luisa thwacked her brother’s shoulder with the back of one hand.  “How many times do you have to knock a girl up before you learn to keep your dick in your pants?”

“Luisa, it’s not that bad, it’s—”

“Tell me that later.  When you’re not making me relive _every other time_ and those other home calls—”

“— _house calls_ —”

“—and having girls in after hours for free because you need them taken care of, you are just as bad as a white male Republican having an affair.”  Luisa paused and tilted her head to one side, fingers tapping on her arm.  “Actually.  Same thing.  Only you aren’t Republican.”

Rafael’s eyebrows raised.  “You’d be in the same boat if _you_ had a dick.”

“But I _don’t_ and I’m _not_ and excuse you I’m in a stable, loving relationship _and you have a wife_.”

“Which doesn’t matter if no one knows, and it’s not like anyone kept the kids before and—”

“Wait.”  Luisa’s voice was soft, and her brother didn’t hear it, just kept rambling on as if she was listening when, by this point, she’d tuned him out entirely.  She turned away from him, thinking over his words, and put a hand on her hip, mouth dropping open, then, a little more loudly than she should be considering where they were, “She’s _keeping_ it?”

Rafael stopped then.  His eyes met Luisa’s fierce ones, and he gave a sheepish grin, hands pushed into his back pockets.  “Yeah.”  He shrugged, but there was a light on his face she hadn’t seen ever since Petra’s—  “Yeah, she’s keeping it.”

All at once, Luisa was excited and then felt her heart sink.  She was used to having to clean up after her brother’s mistakes, and she’d been there for…for before.  It’s a few minutes before she can even speak again.  “Have you…have you told Petra?”

“No.”  Rafael shook his head.  He stepped forward, placing his hands on the back of one of his chairs.  “Of course I haven’t.  I wouldn’t even know how to bring it up.”

“I’m not doing that one for you.”

“No, no, I’m not asking you to.  This one…this one’s on me.”  His shoulders slumped.  Then he looked up with a smile and it was like he was seven years old again and she was fourteen and basically raising him because their father was off on another business trip and she was going to take him to see _Hook_ for the thirteenth time even though it’d only been out a few weeks but he _loved_ being a lost boy (she remembers him running around the house with a wooden sword painted gold and yelling out RU-FI-OOOOOOOOOOOOO) and she knew before he even asked that she would give in.  “But you’ll go see her, right?  Tell her I sent you?  That you’re a specialist, that you’ll take care of everything?”

Luisa tugged on her bottom lip.  “I can tell her that, but you know there are things I can’t fix.  If something happens—”

Rafael immediately was across the room, his hands on her shoulders, and peering down into her eyes.  “Nothing’s going to happen.  Everything’s going to work out just fine.”

“Raf.  It’s not fine _now_.  You still have to talk to Petra.  I have to make sure I have enough time off the clock to take care of this,” and Luisa moved away from him, crossing her arms, “and I will.  That’s not a problem.  They love me, you know they love me, so as long as she’s scheduled and _someone is paying for her_ —”

“I’ve got that covered.”

“I know you do.”

Luisa glanced back.  “But you’ve honestly got to _stop_ doing this, Raf.  You’re going to be a dad now.  Grow up.”  She paused.  “Did you at least wear a condom?”

That sheepish grin again.

“ _Raf!_ ”

* * *

 

_And back…._

“Thank you for doing this,” Xo said as Dr. Alver left her daughter’s room.  “Do we need to pay you, or—”

“No.  My brother has it covered.”  Luisa smiled, letting out a deep breath.  “We’ll want to have her into the clinic in the next few days – I know she’s said she’s already seen someone, and their files should transfer over just fine, but I’d like to get my eye on it.  See everything myself, you know?”  She grinned, as though she were making a joke to herself, then shook her head.  “Don’t you worry about anything.  I’ll take care of her, and it’ll be just fine.”

“I just can’t believe she’s pregnant!  She’s been on birth control for years, and—”

“It doesn’t always work.”  This was said between gritted teeth, and the doctor let out a deep sigh.  “These things happen.  We’re just glad she’s decided to keep it.  That makes all of you part of our family now.”  She glanced up.  “What’s your name again?  You look…familiar.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce myself.  I’m Xiomara.”  Xo held out her hand.  “Xo, for short—”  But she stopped as soon as the doctor’s eyes widened like they had before, only a little less panicked.  “Is something wrong?”

The doctor just grinned and shook her hand.  “Xo!  We used to go to church together!  When I was fourteen – I remember – you were so _cool_.”

“I don’t remember you.”

Luisa shook her head.  “Oh, you wouldn’t.  Raf and I weren’t there very long, and I was keeping track of him half the time.  Dad flew us out to Italy and then we moved to a different precinct or…something like that.  I stopped going in college, and Raf never really liked the _church_ aspect of church.”  She laughed to herself.  “But you could probably guess that, right?”

“Yeah,” Xo said, her voice tense, “I could.”

“Anyway, it’s nice to see you again,” Luisa said.  “Unfortunate circumstances, but it’s nice.”  Her heels clicked on the floor as she headed for the door.  Then she paused and turned back.  “Will you be at the check-ins, or—”

“…the appointments?”

“Yes.  _Those._ ”  Luisa grinned again, eyes shifting.  “The appointments.  Will you be at those?”

Xo shrugged.  “I’ll have to talk about it with Jane.  If she wants me there, I’ll be there.  If not, well, I’m _not_ the overbearing mother type.”

“Didn’t seem like you were.”  She shrugged, too.  “But it’s nice.  That you care.  A lot of parents don’t.  Not when something like this happens.”  Then Luisa held up her hands, palms out.  “But I really shouldn’t be talking about that.  I’ll see you soon, maybe.  We’re family now, after all.”

“Yeah,” Xo repeated as Luisa left.  “ _Family_.”

* * *

 

_Later that night…._

“Luisa.”

“Hm?”  Luisa lifted her head from where it rested on her girlfriend’s chest, hazel eyes meeting her bright blue ones.  She’d been almost _out_ , so comfortable and content that she could feel her eyelids drooping.

“You really need to stop cleaning up after him.”  Her fingers massaged through Luisa’s hair nonchalantly as she read, gentle on her scalp, and Luisa couldn’t suppress the content hum from slipping through her lips.  “He’s never going to learn that way.”

Luisa propped herself up on her elbows.  “He’s not going to learn if I just drop out of his life entirely, Rose.”

“I didn’t say anything about that.”  Rose began to trace circles on Luisa’s back, just between her shoulder blades, and grinned as Luisa shifted beneath her touch.  “I just think he should be allowed to make his own mistakes and grow from them.”

“Like you did?”

Rose’s eyes darkened, and she took a deep breath before letting it out, really slow.  “No.  I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.  You know that.”

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Luisa said, lips pressing together.

“No, you shouldn’t have.”  Rose brushed Luisa’s hair from her face and bent down to kiss her forehead.  “Maybe having a kid will help.”

“Maybe.”  Luisa moved up further so that she could give her a proper kiss then settled back against her chest, wrapping one arm around her.  “I can always hope, right?  He’s my kid brother.  I _want_ —”

“I know what you want.”  Rose turned off the lamp and placed her book on the bedside table.  Then she buried herself beneath the blankets next to her girlfriend.

Luisa let out a happy sound.  “Yes!  Hello darkness my old friend,” she sang the words as she snuggled closer to Rose, closing her eyes.  _Much_ better.

And tomorrow could be a normal day.  With work.  And things that don’t involve taking care of anyone her little brother knocked up.  Just a normal day.

_If only._


	2. Chapter 2

This is not a telenovela.  Normal days _can_ happen.  There aren’t always twists and turns and random shocking surprise moments.  But that’s life.  Sure, someone may randomly have their father turn out to be their favorite telenovela star!  It’s a little like winning the lottery.  But the sheer progression of dramatic twists and turns in a story such as that to the same person, the same family, the same people, grows less and less likely with each random, shocking moment.

We like telenovelas because they _aren’t_ real.  They’re absurd, and they satisfy our desire for such to entertain us.  They fulfil something in the same way a tall tale might.  But this is like trying to pinpoint the exact moments of fact in a movie based on a true story.  Sometimes, they’re close.

Sometimes things get hopelessly twisted, and it takes just as long to untangle them as it did to tell the story in the first place, sometimes even longer.  Was Arthur a real king?  Or is he just a legend?

Who knows?

* * *

 

When Dr. Alver left her house, Jane was still wringing her hands together like her abuela might a rag before using it to mop up the sweat on her face when she was feverish.  “I was planning on telling you,” Jane said as soon as the door to her bedroom opened.  She’d wanted to stay in there as long as possible, to avoid the judgment she was sure was coming.  “And it wasn’t like I was lying to you.  I just hadn’t had a good moment to bring it up.”

“Jane.”

She hated hearing her mother say her name like that, _two syllables_ out of what should only be _one_.  Look her name up in the dictionary and it’s just one.  That’s all it should ever be.  But it’s like some secret method of mothers when they’re exaggerated with their kids.

She won’t do this with her daughter.  (Or son.  It could be a boy.  It _won’t_ be because her family _always_ has girls, but it could be.  She could win the lottery.  Although she’s not sure she’d call it that.  Or maybe she would.  She has no experience raising boys or being a boy, but _Rafael did_.)

“Look, I just saw him at a bar,” Jane began, hands moving out away from her before clapping them together.  “I recognized him but I thought to myself, _you know what Jane, don’t go to him, he’ll come to you_ , and—”

“He came to you.”

“ _He_ came to _me_!”  Jane was exasperated, and she started to smile only to just as quickly drop that and turn away, hands moving to her sides, palms toward the ground.  “And all that time just seemed…it was really _short_ , like I’d seen him just yesterday, and I didn’t know what was happening and then—”  She turned back to face her mom, fingers tangling in front of her stomach.  “ _This_ happened.”

“What happened to Michael?  Does he know?”

“No, no, I haven’t said anything to him yet.  I didn’t know how to bring it up.”  Especially since she’d told him she was a virgin.  Which was _true_.  Or.  It had been.  As far as he was concerned, she still was.  “He’s going to leave if I tell him the truth, and I don’t want that.  He’s a really nice guy!”

“…and Rafael hasn’t called you.”

“ _Or texted me!_ ”  Jane bit her lower lip.  “It’s like he didn’t even take my number.  You know, he could have called and let me know his sister was coming, but he didn’t do that either.”

“Then how did he find out?”

Jane looked away, looked down, but it wasn’t with any sense of shame.  “He said something about being a hotel manager at one of the local hotels, so I—”

“Janie, please tell me you didn’t—”

“It’s not like it was _hard_!”  There was no anger in her voice, just this sense of exasperation.  “I just googled hotel manager and Florida and Rafael and he was the first one that showed up.”  She tapped her fingers on her cheek.  “So I told him.  I mean, I _had_ to tell him, didn’t I?  It’s _his_ kid.  He deserves to know!”

“And you keeping it – the two of you decided that together?”

Jane was silent then.  Uncharacteristically so.  She sat on the edge of her bed and it felt like all the energy was sucked out of her.  Her hands crumpled together between her legs.  “I don’t know.”  She looked down at her hands.  “I didn’t consider any other option.”  She was silent, but Xo didn’t say anything.  It wasn’t _conclusive_ silence.  It was considerative.  And it continued for a few moments, but then Jane picked right up.  “I don’t know that I could do it, you know?”

“Do what?”

But Jane didn’t say it.  She just wrapped one hand protectively around her stomach.  “And it’s Rafael.  And I _know_ we’re not actually _a thing_ and I have Michael, and I do _love_ Michael, but—”

She didn’t have to finish the statement.  Even the _but_ was unfair to the police officer who had been nothing but kind and understanding with Jane for the past two years.  Out of everyone she’d dated, Michael had been the most patient, the most respectful, not just of Jane, but of the entire family.

 _A good guy_ , if the phrase hadn’t been so…polarized by the _guys_ who tried to call themselves that.  It didn’t mean anything when a guy said it.  They **all** thought they were good.

“What am I going to tell him?”

“I think he deserves the truth,” Xo said, sitting on the bed next to Jane.  She placed one hand over her daughter’s.  “It’s not like immaculate conception.  People like us get pregnant one way.  If you don’t say anything, he’ll figure it out.”

But Jane’s eyes lit up the moment Xo mentioned _one way_ , and her head tilted ever so slightly to the left.  “What if there was another way?”

“Another way?” Xo asked, a little wary.  “Like how?”

“Well, there are a lot of people who have trouble getting pregnant.  They get…artificially inseminated.  I could tell Michael _that’s_ what happened.”

Xo’s eyes narrowed.  “Jane.  He’s not going to believe that.”

“You don’t know that.  He might.  And until I know what’s going to happen with this whole _Rafael_ situation, I don’t want to lose _Michael_.”  Her lips pressed together and she shook her head.  “It was a mistake.  It was just a huge mistake.  A one-time thing.  I should have _known_ better.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Jane.  Don’t make this one worse by lying on top of it.”

“I’m not _lying_ ,” Jane said, and then her eyes lit up again, and she wasn’t smiling, but the expression was close enough to it that we might as well call it that.  “I’m telling a story.”

* * *

 

An admittedly _different_ story than what actually happened, but Jane was always good at stories.  She’d used her writing to patch up her mother’s fights with her grandmother multiple times.  (At least, this was the story she told herself.  When you are a child, things seem very different and adults overacting in response to acknowledging what you’ve done doesn’t seem as bad as it does when you are an adult.  Xo and Alba knew, but they wanted Jane to believe she had helped.  So she did.  A little _too_ much.)

Not only that, but it was the base of her entire plan for her life.  She was going to finish her degree.  She was going to grad. school.  She was going to get better and better at writing until she would get paid for it, and the pay didn’t even matter so much as _being published_ did.  It was her dream, even more than Rafael, even though he’d gotten caught up in it (unknowingly) the past five years.  And if she couldn’t tell a story like this to _literally_ save her life, then what kind of story-teller was she?

A **bad** one.

She just needed to make sure that all parties involved would work with her.

This time, she had Rafael’s number.  For emergencies.  This was an emergency.  She thought.  What other kind of emergency could there be?  This was her life!

* * *

 

“You’re going to _what_?”

Jane could hear his confusion over the phone, and she shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.  “I know it sounds _crazy_ , but I have a good life right now, and I don’t want to give all of that up just to have a kid.”

“Ok.”

The word was drawn out in the same way her mother had drawn out her name earlier, and without any visual clues as to what Rafael meant by that, Jane spluttered.  “Look, I know you probably don’t want to be involved with me.  It was probably just a one-time thing, and I get that, and that’s _fine_.”

It wasn’t.

Fine, I mean.

“But I actually have this great boyfriend who likes to have sex in bathrooms—”

“Jane, you’re starting to sound like my sister.”

Her eyes narrowed.  Weird statement.  Really weird.  She didn’t know how to respond to that, so she continued anyway.  “I don’t want to give that up just to keep the kid, you know?  So I thought I’d just tell him that there was a mix up when I went in and I was inseminated when someone else was supposed to.  It probably happens in hospitals all the time.  They only have a 20% success rate, so we wouldn’t even know about the failures!”

There was silence on the other end, but it wasn’t really considerative.  “Ok.”  That sounded final.  “Look, Jane, you do what you need to do to make sure that you’re okay.  I’ll help you out with whatever I can.”

“Can you tell Luisa?  I’ll probably need her on board for this whole thing because Michael might want to come to appointments with my family and that way everyone has their story straight.”

Another silence.  “Jane, are you sure this is the _best_ idea?”

Jane bit her lower lip and tugged on it.  “I don’t see anything else working.  Do you?”

There was a long pause.

“Rafael?”

“No, no, this definitely works.”  Rafael was speaking fast now, as though he’d discovered something.  “And everyone needs to be in on this, right, not just me and Luisa, but everyone involved.”

“Yeah?” Jane said, confused.  “But other than the two of you and my family, there’s no one else, right?  It’s just us?”

“Yeah,” Rafael echoed, “just us.”

Only it wasn’t _just us_ at all.  And now he had a way to break things to his wife without having to disclose what he’d been doing.  It was brilliant!  If it worked.

But let’s just say that some people are easier to fool than others.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait between chapters, friends! I know it's been over a month since the last update, and I've been alternating other chapters of fics instead of this one. I did some polling over on my tumblr (aparticularbandit) as far as stories and AUs and stuff like that around the time I wrote the second chapter, and while this was high on the list of current fics, I've been writing and posting other ones (again, primarily based on the polls). Carla should be completed not this coming Monday but the Monday after that, so maybe this will jump in that gap in the posting schedule? Idk.
> 
> There's also a bunch of other stuff I've been writing and outlining, and AUs coming up to be excited for. Not trying to plug the tumblr, but for polls and keeping updated on what's happening with my writing, that's probably a good place for that. And I take prompts! Even if I take a while to actually finish the things! >.>;;;;;;;;
> 
> But, yeah, sorry I took so long! Here's a new chapter! Let me know what you think!
> 
> (OH ALSO HAVE A LOT MORE PLANNED AS FAR AS STUFF HAPPENING WITH THIS. IT'S HAD SOME MORE BRAINSTORMING WHICH IS GREAT.)

“Luisa, I had a thought.”

This, as you well know, was not exactly true.  It wasn’t _his_ thought; it was Jane’s.  But it didn’t matter _whose_ thought it was, so long as the thought was had.

“Does this thought end with someone else getting pregnant?”  Rose didn’t even turn to look at him, instead continuing to wash the dishes before passing them to Luisa to dry and put away.  It was a typical evening in their house, even if Rafael had dropped in unexpectedly for dinner – without his wife, which wasn’t particularly alarming given the circumstances but was certainly disappointing.  Given the choice, Petra was easily the more relatable of the two, in her opinion.

“No,” Rafael said, his teeth gritting together.

“Does it end with you learning to use a condom?”

“ _No_ ,” Rafael repeated, and his voice grew tighter.

“Then why should it matter to her—”

“Rose.”  Luisa placed a hand on her girlfriend’s shoulder, rubbing the exposed skin gently.  She waited for Rose to meet her eyes, and she offered her a smile before pressing a kiss to her cheek.  “You don’t have to defend me.”

Rose’s jaw worked slightly, but she didn’t say anything else.

Luisa took the clean plate out of her hands and turned to her brother as she began to towel it dry.  “What’re you thinking?”

“About Jane.”

“Mmhm.”  Luisa leaned back against the counter so that she could jostle against Rose as they continued their work.  “What about her?”

“Maybe we could, um, _lie_ about how she got pregnant.  Since she has a boyfriend who won’t be all that happy about her having my kid, especially when she’s supposed to be a virgin.”

“A virgin?”  Luisa’s eyes widened, and she struggled not to laugh.  It was a struggle she lost handedly, and she turned to hide her face against Rose’s freckled arm before waving a hand at Rafael to continue.  It was one of those moments – she _thought_ things couldn’t get any worse for her brother, and yet they _continued_ to do so, in the most unfortunate ways, ones that would be funny if it were anyone else.

Still funny for him, but they were working this out.

“You’ll tell him the truth, of course,” Rose said, looking over her shoulder at Rafael.

“No, we were actually thinking about something else.  A lie, like I said.”  Raf didn’t look at Rose, instead meeting his sister’s eyes as much as he could.  “We were thinking about telling him she was, uh, artificially inseminated.”  He stood as he continued to talk and moved around the bar towards Luisa.

Luisa didn’t say anything.

“And _who_ were you thinking about saying did this to her?” Rose asked, her hand growing tight on the glass in her hand.

“Well, we can’t say it’s just _anyone_ ,” Rafael continued.  He started towards Luisa, but she turned away from him, refusing to face him.  She placed the newly dried plate on their stack of three.  “No one else could corroborate our story.  If we said it was some unnamed doctor, he’d want to look into it—”

“And giving him _Luisa’s_ name makes this easier?”  Rose’s hand tightened again on the glass in her hand, her teeth gritting together.

“Luisa can stand with our story.  She’ll just say it was an accident if he asks.  That she was—”

“— _drinking?_ ” Rose snapped.

“— _not paying attention_ —”

“After everything she’s been through,” Rose said, whirling around to face Rafael, “you want to blame _your sister_ for _your_ mistake?”

“She’s keeping the kid.  It’s not a _mistake_ —”

The glass in Rose’s hand _shattered_.  Soapy shards fell to the floor, and even with the drops already there, they made a tiny tinkling sound.  Rose shook her hand, watched as little drops of blood bloomed on her fingers.  Luisa turned immediately, wrapping her towel around Rose’s hand, and took it in her own.  “We need to take care of this.  Okay?”

Rose nodded, glaring at Rafael.

“You stay here,” Luisa said, looking up at Raf.  “Trying to have this conversation while I work is just going to make things worse.”

“Luisa, I—”

“ _Stay._ ”  Her voice held the same sort of singsong amusement it might if she were speaking with an overexcited puppy, with an equal amount of necessary authority.

Rafael shuffled his feet and nodded as Luisa took Rose out of the kitchen and to the nearest bathroom.  She sat Rose on their toilet and pulled her first aid kit – full of more than what a normal first aid kit would hold, given her doctorate – out from under the sink, searching through it for what she knew she would need.

“Luisa, you can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” Luisa asked as she pulled on a pair of plastic gloves and went to work on the glass shards in Rose’s hand.  “Get these?”  She held tweezers up with a piece of glass between them.

“You know what I mean.”

“You’re right.  I do,” Luisa said with a sigh.  “But that’s my choice, isn’t it?”

“You can’t be considering this.”

Luisa shook her head.  “No, I’m focusing on the glass in your hand.  If I try and focus on something else, I might not be paying attention, and when I don’t pay attention, I may make a mistake, and when I make mistakes—”

“Luisa.”

She looked up and met Rose’s eyes.  “What?”

“ _You_ haven’t done anything.”

“Yet,” Luisa said as her gaze returned to Rose’s cut up hand.  It was easier to focus on this, to look down, to look anywhere but at her girlfriend.

“You’re not _going_ to do anything.”  Rose raised her uninjured hand and cupped Luisa’s cheek, thumb brushing along her skin.  “You don’t make mistakes.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Rose.”  Luisa still didn’t look up.

“And _yours_ is trusting your little brother to have your best interests at heart.”  Rose crossed one leg over the other and leaned forward.

“ _Sit still_ , Rose.  I don’t want to be pulling a piece of glass out and accidentally rip your hand open—”

“—which would be _my_ fault, not _you_ making a _mistake_ —”

“Rose, please.”  Luisa’s thumb ran over her girlfriend’s palm.  It didn’t have the same effect as it would if she wasn’t wearing protective gloves, but it was an attempt.  Even if it wasn’t very soothing.  “Rafael isn’t asking to hurt me.”

“He’s asking to help himself.”

“And I’m his older sister.  I’m supposed to help him.”

“You _can’t_ keep cleaning up after him.”

“This isn’t cleaning up after him.  It’s cleaning up after Jane.”  She hesitated.  “ _If_ I do it at all.  It helps _her_ more than it does _him_ —”

“You know he’s going to try and pull this shit with Petra—”

“And _you_ know she won’t believe it.”  Luisa finally looked up, meeting Rose’s eyes with a gentle smile.  “So Raf doesn’t get away with anything.  His wife still knows he cheated on her.  He still has to deal with that fallout.”

“And the pregnant virgin—”

“—continues to pretend that she’s a virgin, even if she’s not one.  I don’t see any harm in that, do you?”

“Luisa, if the wrong people hear about this, it could cost you your license.”

Luisa put the tweezers away in her medical kit then looked closely at the remaining cuts on Rose’s hand.  There was silence for a few moments, the weight of Rose’s words hanging between them.  It wasn’t something she wanted to think about, which was probably exactly why Rose said it – to _make_ her think about it.  She continued to focus on Rose’s hand because she didn’t want to look up.  “If Jane’s boyfriend actually believes her, then he’s not too bright, is he?  I don’t think the wrong people would believe him.  They’d have to have proof, and there’s not any there, and I could always tell them that we were lying—”

“And then the boyfriend finds out the truth anyway.”

“—but only if he makes a mess out of everything.  And he won’t.  If he’s the type to believe it, then he’s not the type who will do anything that drastic about it.  Most men aren’t like that.  Chances are he won’t stay around for the baby anyway, especially since it isn’t his.  Men are rarely that good.”

“Which is why you chose a woman.”

“Like it was even a choice.”  Luisa patted Rose’s knee with one hand and started pulling off her gloves.  “Wash that,” she indicated to the still bloody hand, “and use some peroxide and gauze and you’ll be fine.”

Rose smiled and leaned forward to press a kiss to Luisa’s forehead.  “Thank you, Dr. Alver.”

“You’re welcome, Dr. Clement.”

Rose scowled.  “Don’t call me that.  Lawyers are lawyers; we’re not….”  Her voice faded off, and she made a wavering motion with one hand.

“Doctor of jurisprudence is still a doctor, Rose.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No,” Luisa said as she finished putting up her medical kit and cleaning up after them.  “But you’re still a doctor.”  She tapped Rose’s nose with one finger then danced out of the bathroom.  She found her brother still in the kitchen, where it appeared he’d tried to sweep up the broken glass on the floor.  “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t sure what to do with the sink.  If there was any glass in there or—”

“We’ll get it.”

Rafael nodded, but he didn’t look up.  He passed the broom back and forth from one hand to the other, and after a few moments of silence only broken by the sound of Rose washing her wounds in the bathroom, he started, “So.”

“So.”  Luisa sat on one of her barstools and patted the one next to her.  “You want me to lie about getting your one-night stand pregnant.”

Rafael sat on the barstool next to her and looked up.  “Could you?” he asked, his expression one of uncertainty.

“What do you know about the boyfriend?”

“Nothing,” Rafael said, and he placed his elbow on the bar, rested his head on the palm of his hand.  “Jane hasn’t said anything about him.  She just called and asked.  He’s apparently a really good guy.”

“Who she hasn’t slept with.”

“He isn’t _me_ ,” Rafael said with a smirk.

“No, he isn’t.”  Luisa laughed.  Then she sighed.  “Look, Raf, you know I want to help you, and I’m going to be doing all I can with Jane’s pregnancy, but this—”

“Lu, it’s a little thing.  Won’t cost you anything.  Just lying to a guy who you don’t even know.  It doesn’t mean anything.”

“And Petra?” Luisa asked.  “What about her?”

“Well,” Rafael started, “I mean, it’s not like—”

“You’re going to tell _your wife_ the truth, aren’t you?  Because I care less about this random guy and more about my sister-in-law.  Who deserves a _lot better_ , I’ll have you know, than a cheating husband.”

“Luisa.”

“ _Raf._ ”  Luisa met his eyes and smiled.  “Of course, I will do this for you.  You know I will.  But—”

“But?”

“But this could have _real consequences_ , Raf.  And if this comes back to bite me in the ass, I’m not going to be able to help you anymore.  At all.”  Luisa’s hands wrang together in her lap.  “I need you to understand that,” she said, trying to meet his eyes again.

Rafael sighed.  “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t my _kid_ , Luisa,” he said, reaching over to take her fidgeting hands between his own.  “Just do this one thing for me.”

Luisa nodded, and, against her much better judgment, said, “Ok.”

**Author's Note:**

> I do plan on more chapters but for some reason having technical difficulties with AO3, so just know that this isn't complete yet and maybe it'll let me fix that on the next update.


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